The following statement returns 14 which is the first non-alphanumeric character in the string expression. Note that the pattern
'%[^a-z0-9]%' can be used instead of '%[^a-zA-Z0-9]%' if the database is case insensitive.

SELECT PATINDEX( '%[^a-zA-Z0-9]%', 'SQLAnywhere12 has many new features' );

To get the first alphanumeric word in a string, you can use something like the following: